Need Help!! I am scared i screwed up my system

Okay so i got my dell xps m1530 today, i started out with 261 gig free on my hard drive. I tried to reformat my computer and installed the windows vista operating system and after the installation it turned to 253gig's. This is without any drivers, I cant go online or anything. (i haven't installed anything). Did i do something wrong, if so what can i do now?

Did i use the right cd to reformat ? i used the operating system cd i got with the dell.

Is it unusual to have that low gig's without installing anything? it is suppose to be 320 gig hdd.

Sorry for being a newbie.

 

In a sense thats normal. You never get the full HD space quoted due to formatting

Some of the space are taken up recovery partition and media direct. Maybe you should run diskcleanup and also clear out your restore points.

 

Did you follow the dell laptop reformat guide by Les, here? Did you make sure you followed all the steps?

And what do you mean without any drivers or you cant go online? Did you try installing the drivers (or download it into another machine and get it cross through a USB or something)?

Were you able to login normally after you reformatted?

And anyways, I think its normal. The system takes up spaces for recovery partitions, for example. Also for media direct I guess, I am not sure. Did you remove the media direct partition completely? Did you try deleting the system restore points?

And finally, don't panic, just in case you tend to. Stay calm and its the best way to work your way out. Don't be too worried and lose your concentration on what you are doing. Cheers. Lots of wonderful people here to help you.

 

hey thanks, i am trying to stay calm.. what happened is that after i reformatted and no drivers installed my hard drive went down by 8 gigs. I am scared i have two copies of alot of stuff. I currently have 0 system restore points. I didnt follow les reformatted guide, i didnt know there was one.

 

Oh dear!! There is a super cool, specific thread on this.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=157838

But all is not lost. Give yourself some time and browse through this thread and see if you can hit upon an area specific to your problem. Else give a quick search in the forums here with some key words.

Meanwhile, can you see the partitions you have currently now? What does it say? What are the sizes like? and the descriptions, like primary, recovery etc etc?

 

But why havent you installed any drivers yet? apart from your mentioned problem? I would install the drivers anyways, and see if every other thing is working fine. As for the size, if its just the hard disk size, some partitioning value mistake or something like that, then you could at least be sure all the other stuff are working fine.

Else, do a complete, clean reinstall once again, BUT THIS TIME, follow Les' guide word-by-word

 

the os is 251 right now, and recovery is 3.14. The os use to be 261

 

yea i am installing the drivers as we speak. The gig free space is going down though. I am scared that the reformat didnt go through properly and i am having 2 of everything

 

By default, Dell leaves a recovery partition of 10 GB. Are you sure you removed that / reformatted that the first time you were doing this reformat? I guess there is this default dell recovery partition hiding in there.......

 

yea it is 10 gigs, but 3.14 is free

 

Hmm.. i would install the drivers and run a quick check if everything is working fine, like touchpad, network, sound, graphics etc etc... and then wait to see if any experts drop in here with any solutions / suggestions. Else, I don't know, probably you might have to do a clean install.

Btw, when you were reformatting, did u come across the default dell recovery D:? what happened to that? Was that the one you now have as 3 something GB?

 

Ah ok.... saw this post just now.

Anyways... I am looking around as well. Will let u know if I come across something.

 

hey +1 rep for you,

Okay the drivers are working and i can go online. havent finished installing all the driver yet.

should i reformat it again. its at 250 gigs, it seems like it is tumbling down after every other driver being installed

 

No, complete installing all the drivers. It shouldn't fill in your OS.

Meanwhile, just run the quick check which I thought would be nice to make sure the drivers and components are fine. And at the same time, wait to see if any expert out here comes up with a solution. Probably you could fix this without doing another clean install.

But why is your recovery only 3.14 free??? Mine is usually (and always been) 5.99-6 GB free.

 

if you look in your hard drive, youll see a folder called windows.old that is left over from the first install of windows, deleting this should get you back your 8gbs

 

By the way, you could check on your system restore size settings. Default is like 15% of your hard drive I think. I don't know if this is anyway connected to this, but you could just check on it to make sure the default values are still there.

http://tomnish.com/2007/06/how-to-reduce-disk-space-used-by.html

Note: Just see what the values are like, please don't mess around with this now. I wouldn't if I were you. I would rather wait it out for a while to see what others say

 

also I just read in another place, in a vista specific forum about windows.old file!!!! Check if you can find this file. Its apparently left back in your hard disk. Probably you might have to enable 'view hidden files'

 

Yeah, there you have, like arknsashilbilly said, you could look for this file. they say this takes up quiet some space.

 

thank you so much arknsashilbilly. windows.old was 16.4 gb!!!!!!!!!!!! that was the problem

 

Glad you figured it out and hope all your drivers are working fine and being happy n gay!! Enjoy your system